Swivel lock assemblies have been provided for many years for casters that accommodate swivelling movement of the caster about a vertical pivotal axis. In one conventional form of caster, a swivel plate is pivotally mounted on top of the horn and this swivel plate is adapted to be fixed to the lower part of the article to be supported. Swivelling movement of the caster greatly increases the mobility and maneuverability of the supported article. It is frequently desirable to selectively prevent swivelling movement of the caster to assist in either completly or partly immobilizing the article supported. Various swivel lock assemblies have been provided in the past for this purpose, but they have been found to be not only expensive to manufacture, but also, to my knowledge, they have achieved swivel locking only in a semi-positive fashion that is not desirable in applications that require a high degree of reliability in immobilizing the supported article.
It is also frequently desirable to provide directional locking, i.e., all of the four casters supporting the article being oriented in the same angular position, so that the supported article is constained to move in only one linear direction.
It is the primary object of the present invention to ameliorate the problems noted above in swivel caster assemblies having swivel lock mechanisms.